Photo by Brenda Maitland

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October 2011. Tailgating has become a sport unto itself, complete with a commissioner.

If you haven’t been tailgating for your favorite football team lately, you may be in for a surprise. Tailgating has gone big-time, all over the country. There’s even a professional “commissioner of tailgating” from New Orleans: more on Joe Cahn later.

The New Orleans Saints’ new $13.5 million, 60,000 square foot Champions Square plaza next to the Superdome opened this past August for fans—with music and video, vendor-supplied refreshments and other pre- and post-game activities.

For SEC conference games, estimates of tailgating crowds range between 130,000–150,000 when perhaps the stadium only holds 91,000-92,000. The game goes on and so does the party, both inside the stadium and out.

Pre- and post-game tailgating activities continue to feature game day cheers and chants, human pyramids, team apparel, pennants, face-painting, pick up trucks, lawn chairs, and cook-outs.

However, today’s post-pep rally culture has reached far beyond the basics. The festivities have expanded to include bigger toys, such as custom painted and outfitted recreational vehicles, mammoth-sized mascots, flat screen TVs, satellite dishes, sound systems, Oriental rugs, candelabras, chandeliers, living room furniture, spiffy tents, and potted plants. Flags the size of king bed sheets wave mightily in the still warm, early fall winds.

Then there are the temporary street signs, planted anywhere, that boast names like “Tiger Bait Avenue,” spotted on a field near LSU’s stadium one Saturday in  September.

For miles around Tiger Stadium, along Nicholson Drive, in parking lots, anywhere there was an open patch of grass or pavement, it was a wall-to-wall sea of purple and gold-clad LSU fans and in some cases, their pets.

Amid the incredible sights sounds, smells and tastes that day, a custom designed Death Valley-themed hearse and casket were great attention-getters.

Michael Drago, an antiques dealer and huge Tiger fan, bought the hearse on eBay Motors, flew up to New York to retrieve his purchase and drove it to Baton Rouge where he had the vehicle custom painted in purple with gold flames.  He also acquired a coffin and had it decorated to match.  But he didn’t stop there.

The casket’s interior is outfitted with a flat screen TV in the lid and a bar.  On game day, Drago costumes in bishop’s robes, white satin with purple and gold, of course.

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